


Hold Onto Your Heart (You'll Keep It Safe)

by EvilOfEden



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Route, Bernie has to play hero, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Matter of Life and Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 15:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20409853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilOfEden/pseuds/EvilOfEden
Summary: “I promise I’ll be gentle,” he’d said, and his words and skin had both been warm as sunlight.He was the only one who’d promised so far, and for all her fear, she couldn’t let that grow cold.Bernie doesn't consider herself much of a medic, but when Caspar falls on the battlefield and all the other healers are occupied, she's the only chance he's got.





	Hold Onto Your Heart (You'll Keep It Safe)

Bernadetta isn’t particularly devout, but thank the goddess that her fingers didn’t start trembling until after the arrow she’s loosed buries itself in the bastard’s head. His is the third body to crumple in the last thirty seconds. She tries not to trip on the corpses as she rushes to the one still living.

“No no no no no” is her constant string of thought, unsure if she’s saying it out loud and not really caring. She kneels in the blood-streaked grass. “Caspar, if you’re dead—”

“Not dead,” he croaks. His skin usually seems pale compared to his bright shock of teal hair, but it’s even worse with the blood. The short spear jutting out of his shoulder doesn’t help matters any. His axe rests a few feet out of reach from his currently unusable hand.

Bernie holds tight to her bow as she scans their surroundings. No more enemies nearby. No allies either; the closest healer is Linhardt, and he’s halfway across the battlefield trying to keep Dorothea standing as they take a stronghold together. Rescue isn’t coming for them anytime soon.

“We’re clear here?” Caspar asks. He tries to sit up, and his good elbow immediately buckles. A strangled gasp escapes as his movements jostle the short spear.

“We are. Don’t try to move.” Bernadetta curses herself for not seeing the spear wielder and striking him down first. Caspar could weave and bob around blades and axes all day long, but he wasn’t prepared to deal with ranged weapons. Not like Bernie. “Stupid, stupid Bernie.”

“Hey.” Despite her orders, he lifts his hand and claps her shoulder. “We all make mistakes. I should’ve hung back instead of…’stead of taking them all at once.” He manages a smile. Bleeding out, and still smiling. “And I’ve got a concoction. I’ll be fine.”

Except he tries to reach into the tiny satchel where he holds his emergency concoction, the last one remaining, and his fingers fail him. They fumble at the clasp, and when it refuses to open, he claws at the leather and leaves bloody prints behind. He must’ve already tried to remove the spear on his own.

Those same hands have picked Bernie up and carried her away to gorgeous sunsets more times than she could count—literally, she blocked out the trips themselves out of horror. But she clings to the view, and the memory of Caspar’s hands the last time they went, gently clasped around hers. “I promise I’ll be gentle,” he’d said, and his words and skin had both been warm as sunlight.

He was the only one who’d promised so far, and for all her fear, she couldn’t let that grow cold.

She kneels next to him and pushes his hand away to open the satchel. Even in its glass, the concoction fizzes with energy and power in her grasp. “Bernie’s going to help you get up. But you’ve got to drink this first.”

“’Course.” But Caspar still can’t sit up on his own, so Bernadetta holds his head up and tips the glass to his lips. He chugs it so fast he nearly chokes, bits of it dribbling down his lips as he coughs. But there’s no blood in his mouth. Color returns to his face. That’s good. That means there’s a chance.

Bernie closes her eyes and tries the easier option first. At least, it should be. Faith seems to come so naturally to Linhardt, the Professor, even Dorothea. If only a couple words could knit Caspar back together so he could carry her off this battlefield…but the goddess does not reach her grace down. They remain alone.

Bernadetta grabs her knife—she always has a knife, even in her room, just in case—and cuts off Caspar’s war master cape. She slices it into ribbons in her lap, keeping them from the grass. Takes a deep breath, and she wishes it didn’t shake so much. That she could be calm and encouraging, like the professor. But she’s just Bernie.

Caspar’s eyes are glazing over, but they linger on Bernie’s hands. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to get the spear out. Then I have to plug up the wound quick with these. So you don’t…” Bleed out and go cold and immobile and leave her all alone again. “Whatever happens, you’ve got to make it. I’ll kill you if you don’t come back. Okay?”

Caspar tries to laugh. It turns into a cough. “Can’t kill me if I’m dead, Bernie.” Now his eyes linger on hers, at the pinpricks of frightened, frustrated tears. “You’ve got it. Just…be gentle with me.”

She tries. Goddess, how she tries, because the sound of him screaming as the blade of the spear slides against his muscles on the way back out is too much to bear. She throws the spear aside as if it’s a serpent, then balls up the strips of cape and shoves them into the wound. They gush with blood. Her fingers come away redder than they ever have. Caspar’s trying not to hyperventilate from pain and shock.

“You’re going to be okay,” Bernie orders. She shoves cloth into the gaping wound until nothing more will go in, and then she does her best to seal it off. “You’re going to live so you don’t haunt me, and we’re going to survive this war together. And then we’re going to that stupid hill, and you’ll propose as the sun goes down, and damn our parents and everyone else, we’re going to be happy.”

The wind that blows past will not give up the scent of blood. Bernie fears the worst. She didn’t believe enough, didn’t love enough.

But Caspar’s fingers twitch, bloody but not yet broken, and he takes a quivering breath. “I can live for that.”

Despite herself, she wraps her arms around him and holds him tight, holds him together until real help can arrive. She doesn’t have faith, but she’s got her own two hands, so that’ll have to be enough.

He quirks half a grin. “Never thought I’d have to say this, but…gentle, Bernie.”

“Gentle,” she promises him back.

**Author's Note:**

> The minute I completed Bernie and Caspar's A-Rank, I knew I'd have to turn the tables by having Caspar ask Bernie to be gentle. This meant either sexytimes or violence, and I can't write smut to save my life, so...  
...Have this quick oneshot and let them be happyyyyyy.
> 
> (Quick shoutout to "Blood on the Page: A Writer's Compendium of Injuries" by Samantha Keel, which is great for when you need a gory wound for your literal-hurt/comfort fics. Whee!)


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